


(together) we burned

by disarmed



Category: The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmed/pseuds/disarmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when he was a child, moses saw a future of wealth and opulence amidst the royal halls, surrounded by his kin. now the future is here, and it brings with it the greatest gift he could never have seen coming in all his years, and her name is tzipporah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(together) we burned

**Author's Note:**

> after not contributing to any fandom for quite some time i'm more than surprised that this is what is paving the way for what i hope to be a new path of writing. lyrics from an assortment of 'daughter' songs. a companion piece to the film, featuring a lot of creative license, this is in no way meant to be relative to any sort of religious/biblical views. (also excuse the lack of caps, this was one of those 12am fic-runs that was never intended to be public.)

_don’t you dare look back_

_walk away_

_catch up with the sunrise_

 

born to amram and yocheved, he is a small baby with dark eyes and tufts of brown hair. brother to miriam and aaron, he has round cheeks that yocheved surmises are her own, but when he is still in slumber she can imagine his face being leaner like this father’s.

 

yocheved imagines a lot for her baby.

 

she had never imagined this.

 

he is three months old. three months old and yocheved wraps her baby in an ark and hides him in the bulrushes. the nile runs around her ankles and the stalks of the plants, and miriam and aaron follow, clutching at her skirts with fear and curiosity.

 

yocheved hears the cries of the mothers, the wails and the screams and the soul-scarring sounds as their children are stripped from them. it is a cacophonous chorus of sound that chills her to the bone. she wonders if egypt has ever heard a cry like this before.

 

‘be safe, my child.’ she whispers to the basket, and place it down upon the nile. miriam inhales sharply.

 

‘hush now my baby, be still now don’t cry…’

 

she sings to him then. to her baby boy. she sings him a lullaby her mother sung to her, that she has sung to miriam and to aaron, that hopefully they will sing to their own babies one day.

 

‘sleep like you’re rocked by the stream…’

 

a long life is more than anyone dare hope for in this world. a long life with children is something else entirely. yocheved has mostly been lucky, but she knows that aaron and miriam are destined for a life of slavery, and she can but love them with every inch of her soul to try and make up for that atrocity.

 

‘sleep and remember my lullaby…’

 

yocheved knows not what lay ahead for her infant son - should he die in the nile the way that seti demands than so be it, but it will be with a chance for freedom that the other children are not given. yocheved fought for him to come into this world; she will not let him go onto the next without another.

 

her fingers grip the little ark and she breathes in deeply, steels herself, and then pushes it out into the current.

 

‘and i’ll be with you when you dream.’

 

* * *

 

_have a little voice to speak with_

_and a mind of thoughts and secrecy_

 

tuya is ankle deep at the riverbank, her handmaidens at her sides, careful eyes on rameses as he waits patiently. here she cannot hear the cries of the israelite mothers as they are stripped from their children. the sound makes her heart ache so, as a woman and a mother herself tuya cares not that she is queen in this moment, but that she herself cannot imagine a horror so real.  

 

seti can.

 

seti can imagine that the israelites will rise against them, that their numbers will grow so strong that their splendour will be ruined under greedy hands and dirty soles. he imagines a bloodbath, a war, an uprising, and he tells tuya of it every chance he gets. she knows his fears, she knows the reality of it happening, but even she had not imagined that this would be the route he would take.

 

males.

 

all of them.

 

destined for the nile and whatever creatures inhabit her.

 

she looks back at rameses, her own little boy, and sighs. slaves or not, she can only hope their passing is quick and painless.

 

turning back to the water, she stares in silence at the strange object floating toward her off the currents. it is a basket, woven carefully she can see as it nears. she wades out further, curious, ignoring the worried twitter of her hand maidens. when the basket comes to her she removes the top, and stares down incredulously at the little baby suckling at his hand, large brown eyes blinking up at her slowly.

 

she looks up and out at the nile. _surely not._

 

but there is no one here and the little boy is wrapped carefully in cheap cloth, dry and content enough in his tightly woven ark. tuya picks him up carefully, he gurgles, coughs a little, and tuya pats his back gently.

 

‘what a journey you must have had,’ she murmurs between them. the baby coos.

 

she turns, silencing her handmaidens with a single look.

 

‘mommy!’ rameses pulls gently at her skirts and she smiles.

 

‘come, rameses, we shall show pharoah your new brother… moses.’

 

* * *

 

 

_wide eyed, both in silence_

 

pharoah presents his new son with little flare.

 

‘moses,’ he intones formally.

 

tuya stands as proud and regal as ever, and never turns her head when she hears the whispers.

 

_but moses, it is a hebrew name is it not?_

 

_to draw from water, surely it can’t be?_

 

_pharaoh must not know._

 

they can say what they want.

 

he is moses.

 

and he is her son.

 

* * *

 

  


_don’t think about the choices that you make_

 

‘come on moses, admit it, you’ve always looked up to me!’

 

rameses hollers his laugh over the thunderous sound of their horses’ hooves. what a race!

 

moses laughs. ‘yes!’ he shouts up at his brother. ‘but it’s not much of a view!’ the flash of rameses’ undergarments is of high amusement, whether he wins the race or not the fun come from just the participation is satisfying enough. but he’s never been one to step down without a fight.

 

this has always been their life. push and pull and give and take. over and over and over again. mischief and apologies rehearsed unto perfection. moses cannot imagine his life without rameses, his serious, worried brother, so easily coerced into all kinds of trouble. they are the perfect partnership, he and rameses, brothers in arms.

 

egypt will flourish under rameses’ rule, moses knows it. he has little doubt his brother will not be a great pharaoh, one to rival even their father. also, for when rameses gets too caught up in his royal duties, moses will be there to offer some much needed humorous relief.

 

‘second born, second place!’ cries rameses mockingly from above him, and moses grins ferally and thinks. _alright, brother._

 

‘not for long!’

 

he thrashes at the reins, snapping against the necks of his horses as they take on the hill at a gallop. he throws his chariot into rameses’ and presses his brother hard into the wall when they break even ground. rameses grunts and curses in annoyance and fear before gaining his balance and lashing at his own reins.

 

‘you almost killed me!’ he exclaims with wide eyes.

 

moses laughs even harder.

 

he doesn’t take a moment to think as he follows rameses up onto the platforms, sharp turns and rickety wood at every stop, and his chariot teeters on the edge as his horses pull to make ground. rameses is still ahead of him, and moses wants to run him down a little more yet.

 

it is unfortunate and untimely that the temple be ruined so.

 

moses cares little but for his life and for rameses’ as they come to a halt upon the hill. he looks to his brother, whose chest heaves as he breathes just as much as his horses’ legs shake from exertion. he meets moses eyes and the two chuckle nervously.

 

‘do you think we’ll get in trouble for this?’ asks rameses slowly.

 

moses laughs, full and throaty. ‘no, of course not!’

 

* * *

 

  


_i’m a foolish, fragile spine._

 

she burns hot like ra’s gaze does upon their lands and her skin is dark like the night when the evening star is hidden. she spits wildfire at them and moses believes her to be a highly amusing tribute to rameses, until his _blessed_ brother gifts her to _him._

 

from midian, she is. a desert flower, rameses calls her.

 

a desert cobra, he amends when she tries to bite at the hand he uses to caress her face.

 

moses approaches her like one would approach a cobra, and just as unpredictable like the serpent he compares her to, she tries to strike at him when he is unsuspecting.

 

the laughter rings and moses thinks _enough._  ‘you _will_ show the proper respect to a prince of egypt.’

 

her lips curl and he reads the contempt and disdain and hatred with ease. ‘but i am showing you all the respect you deserve.’ she says, and her voice is rich, eyes narrowed, honesty owning every word. ‘ _none.’_

 

she curls her hands around the rope and twists it from the guards. moses dives to catch it. a laughing matter this has become, and laughing matters are something moses has always come out of well. she struggles and turns and pulls against his very weight.

 

‘let go!’ she demands.

 

he almost smiles. ‘as you wish.’

 

she lies in the pool, humiliated amongst the lilies and coughing water from her lungs. moses looks back to his parents, and he wishes he could take the disappointment he sees in his mother’s eyes and drown himself in it.

 

* * *

 

  


_in the darkness i will meet my creators_

 

he helps her.

 

or he helps her in as little ways as he can. she intrigues him. her spitfire and her honesty. her sharp eyes and her sharp cheekbones. he follows her as she leads the camel into the night and he is enraptured.

 

he doesn’t mean to interact with the slaves.

 

‘please forgive me, i didn’t expect to see you, here of all places - at - at - at our door.’

 

she is a slave girl, perhaps his age but she looks older. her hands are wringing and she has wide eyes.

 

moses knows not of what she speaks and he doesn’t much care, his rattlesnake woman has gone off into the night with little but the evening star to guide her and she says her journey is a long one. moses wonders where she goes and how she knows which way to be headed.

 

‘you’re our brother.’

 

he stares at them then, these poorly dressed, rough-handed slaves, and thinks _your senses have taken leave of your body_.

 

‘i knew you cared about our freedom,’ the slave girl says to him.

 

moses laughs, true and straight. ‘freedom? why would i care about that?’ he looks at her then, curious with a brow raised, incredulous but tired of this woman’s ramblings. he has lost his entertainment for the night and these slaves are becoming more like a pestilence.

 

‘you were born of my mother, yocheved’

 

moses knows not of the name and he cares little. but she continues to speak out of turn and with passion he doesn’t like. he has had enough and he tells her so, but she doesn’t listen. the other man, her brother, claims madness and moses wants to believe him but as he stares into her face he can’t seem to see the lie.

 

‘you will regret this night,’ moses tells her, venomous, and she curls upon herself on her knees in the dirt as he turns his back on her.

 

then the song that has haunted him all his life comes forth from her lips and moses flees.

 

* * *

 

 

_i want all that is not mine_

 

moses is surrounded by alabaster and limestone. by gold and by riches. by his animals and his guards. he is surrounded by all his trappings and his belongings and he is at home. or that is what he tells himself when the doubt claws under his skin and settles there like a wayward beetle.

 

they come in flashes then. in his panic. as he runs down the walls that tell the story of his life, of his family, of his people. they come in flashes until he stands in front of the drawings etched into grotesque accuracy of the hebrew children dying. of their fall into the nether, too little to know their own fates. of the way his own father sits upon his throne and makes it so. _flash_ . a woman yells. _flash._ a child cries. _flash._ there is water and it rushes around him. _flash._ the sound of her voice. _flash_. the cries of many mothers as they mourn the loss of their babies.

 

moses feels the bile rise within in his throat and he thinks he may lose his stomach.

 

‘father, tell me you didn’t do this.’

 

‘oh my son, they were only slaves.’

 

moses knows what the man he called father is saying, but he cannot believe it.

 

and so he goes to the woman he called mother.

 

‘you are our son, and we love you.’

 

and he knows they do, that she does. she is mother, she is holy, she is divine. she was the one who held him to her breast when the nights were long and hot and he cried, miserable in his cottons. she is the one who held his hand and fussed with his hair and pressed her cool lips to his cheek. she is the one who smells like lilies and _home_ and she may not have birthed him but she is his _mother._

 

‘this is your home, my son.’

 

but it is not.

 

it is not and moses knows this. he knows it because of the ache behind his ribs, that screams _wrong wrong wrong_ over and over with every breath he takes.

 

she is soft as she holds his head to her breast once more.

 

‘now you know the truth, love. now forget and be content. when the gods send you a blessing, you don’t ask why it was sent.’

 

moses lets himself go to her tender touch, for it will be the last.

 

* * *

 

_just a young heart confusing my mind_

 

‘i am not only going to restore this temple; i am going to make it more grand.’

 

and moses looks down upon the aching backs and the broken bones, the whiplashed skin and the cracked soles of the slaves that rameses wants to use to build his greatness from, and he feels ill.

 

rameses talks to him of opportunities and blessings but moses only hears the crack of the whip and the cry of the old man above them, and it pulls at his soul.

 

he can not condone this.

 

he hears her then.

 

_miriam._

 

the girl who calls herself his sister.

 

‘somebody has to stop this.’

 

moses agrees. somebody has to stop this. who will stop this? rameses? and before he knows it moses is running, scrabbling at sand, pushing his aching muscles to get to the old man as fast as he can.

 

he is defending him.

 

and the guard is falling.

 

‘moses what is going on?’ cries rameses as he blocks the path that moses is trying to run down.

 

and the turmoil explodes from within moses’ chest as if by a great force.

 

‘ask the man i once called father!’ he cries, and leaves rameses in his alabaster glory to take to the deserts.

 

* * *

 

 

_what a mess i leave to follow_

 

moses knows not where he’s going, or where he might end up. he knows what he leaves behind and he knows he cannot be a part of it any longer. he leaves his broken sandals in the sand, drops his gold adornments one by one, throws his headpiece to the sands and runs a hand through his short hair; feels the sweat drip and his resolve fade.

 

he has nothing. he has no one. he has nowhere to go.

 

and the sandstorm comes, and moses thinks that perhaps it will rip the skins from his bones the way his tutors always told him it would. it would be a blessing to be rid of everything now.

 

but moses wakes up.

 

he is dragged to a well, where he gulps greedily at the water shared by sheep, and he looks up into their long faces with dazed pleasure and incredulity. a former prince of egypt, who could want for nothing, now more grateful than he could ever think possible to be sharing the spittle-laced water of sheep.

 

when the little girls cry out, he cannot help himself but to answer.

 

it is the right thing to do.

 

* * *

 

 

_two hands digging in each other’s wounds_

 

he is just as surprised to see her as she is him, and he is slightly expectant when she drops him back into the well.

 

fair is fair, after all.

 

her name is tzipporah and she is beautiful. she is beautiful but she is sharp and she is ever-moving, ever-constant. she has no time for stillness and no time for drawn out apologies. she is as he remembers her, spitfire and honesty except here she is humorous and playful.

 

 _she is free_ he thinks with a guilty conscience.

 

‘i have done nothing in this life worth honouring,’ moses says ruefully on the first night, when her father wants to give him praise.

 

jethro looks at moses not with pity but with patience. ‘first, you rescue tzipporah from egypt, then you defend my younger daughters from brigands. you think that is nothing?. it seems you do not know what is worthy of honor.’

 

 _no,_ thinks moses, _i don’t._

 

they sing and they dance and they herd and they live. there is little to eat and little to drink but it is always shared, always offered, and moses smiles as the girls hand him fruits and he pretends not to notice the juice is dripping down his beard just so that they can laugh.

 

they are _free._

 

‘we are alive. you and i, are we not?’ tzipporah asks him one night when they’re surrounded by jethro and his family and his followers and friends. they watch the people dance as much as the flames and moses wonders if after such a long time they can talk like this, she and him.

 

they share duties and they share trade, but they don’t often share words around the evening place like this, even after so long. moses wonders just how long it has been. it is carefree, here, he lives his days as they come, with the same easy love he had when he and rameses would chase each other around limestone pillars and tumble down alabaster steps.

 

he wonders what rameses is doing now. his brother. moses touches the ring on his finger.

 

‘we are,’ he agrees after a moment, head inclined towards her. his hair is longer. her eyes are watching the flames.

 

‘i’m going to dance,’ she says abruptly, and leaves him.

 

he watches her, her twists and her turns, and she reminds of the river. not so much a desert cobra anymore.

 

she twirls, and catches his eyes with hers over the fire. he smiles. though some bite remains.

 

* * *

 

_my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep_

 

he attaches flowers to her staff, as she sits upon the rocks and keeps him company while he watches the sheep. she doesn’t have to of course, there are many other things in the village she could be doing, but she sits with him more often now. days at a time, until the sun passes from one side of the sky to the other.

 

tzipporah offers witty conversation and intelligent replies amongst the cliffs and the wool, and her skin is sun kissed and her hair is thick and dark, and she lays across the rocks like the warmth soaking into her skin gives her life.

 

moses thinks she might be the one who gives him life.

 

he tells her so.

 

she tells him he’s right. (she is always right.)

 

they tell her father.

 

the are married.

 

tzipporah smiles, mouth wide, her hands warm in his as he buries his face in her hair and inhales. she smells of the land and of something fresh, something from the water her sisters have bathed her in before the ceremony. moses touches her cheek with the worn, calloused pads of his fingers, and it is so soft beneath them he almost feels like he should pull away, but tzipporah leans into his touch and keeps smiling, and moses knows now more than ever he is home.

 

they fall into the covers with laughter and anticipation, and tzipporah is eager yet nervous. she is glorious beneath her simple white dress, and when she pushes his robe from his shoulders and presses her lips to the skin there he shuts his eyes and _revels._

 

* * *

 

_we learn from the times we are cursed_

 

it is many years later, when his skin has become tougher and the lines on his face have become deeper that he finds the burning bush.

 

moses hears the voice of the divine and he is changed forever.

 

he tells tzipporah so, when they are alone in their tent. he tells her everything, every single moment that he can remember, how he felt, how he knows this is what he has to do; that it’s the right thing to do.

 

she says nothing.

 

‘look at your family,’ he tells her. ‘they are free.’

 

tzipporah stares past him  and out at her sisters laughing together in the distance.

 

‘they have a future,’ he continues, ‘they have hopes and dreams… and the promise of a life with dignity. that is what i want for my people. and that is why i must do this task...that god has given me.’

 

tzipporah meets his eyes. she stares into them the way she did the night they first met, back in the grand halls of a time when he called himself prince, as if she can see into him.

 

‘i’m coming with you,’ she says.

 

 _i love you,_ he thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

_two feet standing on a principle_

 


End file.
